A man tends to his flock of clouds. A beehive’s queen finds herself threatened by members of her royal court. A woman sees messages in the murmurations of starlings. Gigi Ganguly’s Biopeculiar: Stories of an Uncertain World is a collection of twenty-two short stories that explore the natural
Think back to a moment when you made a split-second decision. What if you had chosen differently? What if you could rewrite your life? In Dharini Bhaskar’s Like Being Alive Twice, we explore this possibility through two diverging timelines---the life that Poppy actually leads, and the life she could
[The window for submissions is now closed.]Helter Skelter is a proud partner of the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize. The Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize celebrates the best of new short fiction from around the world. In addition to cash awards and writing retreats, Prize-winning and shortlisted authors have
In Tashan Mehta’s Mad Sisters of Esi, islands are alive, memories are dimensions we can navigate, and the universe is a sea on which ships of discovery sail. Two sisters---Laleh and Myung---live within the whale of babel, which houses unimaginable worlds. But Myung wants to leave. Her journey leads
Four defining moments in India’s past and present weave together in Siddhartha Deb’s The Light at the End of the World, an expansive, sweeping novel of fever dreams and buried truths. Real-world history bleeds into the speculative as we follow its characters back in time. In a near-future
In Praveena Shivram’s debut novel, Karuppu, the land of the dead is a shifting, moving spiral, presided over by Yama, lord of the dead. But Yama is missing, and in his absence, chaos reigns. A prophecy comes to light, and two children from vastly different worlds become caught up
Tejaswini Apte-Rahm’s debut novel, The Secret of More, is an ode to an India that has been relegated to the past. It is the picture of an India bustling with activity and insatiable hunger, and almost all of its characters hunger for more. This intensity of passion and ambition
Helter Skelter is a proud partner of the Desperate Literature Prize for Short Fiction. This story by Mariana Roa Oliva was one of the final shortlisted entries for the prize in 2022. I just want to say two things about Pachuca. First: Pachuca es una ciudad darks. And second: Rebo,
Volume 7 of the Helter Skelter Anthology of New Writing features 22 new and original pieces of short-fiction and poetry from India, handpicked by Mridula Koshy (If It Is Sweet, Not Only the Things That Have Happened, Bicycle Dreaming) and Sumana Roy (How I Became a Tree, Missing, Out of